Psychology and resistance: between psychiatric knowledge and diagnosis

Abstract

Positivist approaches in psychology have endorsed the discourse of the distinction between normal and abnormal, contributing to the production of diagnoses based on the psychopathological perspective. The psychiatric power present in these psychological aspects is based on pathologizing discourses and practices that disregard subjectivities. The present study aims to present the findings of academic literature on the perspective of critical psychologists in relation to psychiatric diagnosis. The method used was cartographic, through mapping in the SciELO database. The descriptors 'diagnosis AND psychology' were used, in the period from 2020 to 2024, aiming to identify the lines of resistance woven by the device of psychology; the theoretical reference is based on the writings of Michel Foucault. In this way, critical psychologists, influenced by Marxist, Foucauldian and psychoanalytic thought, have fostered academic practice and production, presenting lines of resistance as a force and an inevitable response to the majority exercised power.